They out-dated, weak, and harassers have replaced them - among other reasons. Lightnings have no chance against any competent solo driven MBT and an MBT only costs 100 nanites more. Perhaps one could argue about the techplant MBT barrier, but that is easily eliminated. At 150 nanites, any 2 man AV Harasser can easily solo any lightning - except maybe in peek-a-boo fights, but if somebody dies in a peek-a-boo fight, then they were greedy for that next shot. Harassers are way faster - a "Lightning" is so slow that it might as well be a sunderer. Harassers are better AA platforms also because they are more mobile and a decent ranger gunner can do just as much damage as a skyguard. A skyguard cannot solo a decent Liberator pilot and a decent ranger Harasser can go even and might just win. Even if the Harasser loses, the players can pull another one for less than a skyguard. So buff the ranger a bit (the skyguard has a bit higher dps, but the low mobility makes it worse) and eliminate the skyguard altogether. So delete all lightnings OTHERWISE give the lightning some serious buffs.
I'm a lightning main as far as vehicles are concerned... it is the only vehicle that totally clicked with me when I started playing PS2 last year. Plus it is fairly decent for solo bus busting and light anti-air. I just auraxed it and got my lumifiber skin so now everyone can easily spot and destroy me. I feel that MBTs are too fast for the level of damage they can deal and the amount of damage they can take in comparison to a Lightning Tank. MBTs should be the big, slow bruiser. You can (fairly) easily out flank him, but if you don't you're toast. With that in mind, MBTs should get a speed decrease across the board. Lightnings, should be more lightning.. they should get a speed increase... without the cert into racer. So a slight decrease to MBT speed, slight increase to the lightning. I think adjusting the speeds between the two would be a meaningful change, without even adjusting weapons damage or armor. That said, Pre-CAI lightning AP damage was at 1000. Today it does a wimpy 700, and that is only after a recent increase from the original CAI nerf to 650. So the Lightning did get the poo end of the stick in the CAI shenanigans... outside of the ability to one shot ESFs (which is fun). Harasser fights are pretty even on flat surfaces between lightnings imo. On uneven terrain, I think the harasser has the advantage due to speed and mobility (and the top guns seem suited for such battles). And just forget about battling an MBT (and expecting to survive). For those I keep C4 at the ready and ambusher jumpjets...
Lightnings do have a chance against any competent solo MBT as long as you drive it as a Lightning and not an MBT. Lightnings are completely different from the 3 MBT's in the game. They are low, small, quite fast and have a pretty big punch. Where a Harasser drives in-your-face and uses it's speed to dodge your shots a Lightning can hug the terrain, use it's small profile to reduce the chance of hits and generally be a solid addition to your army. The fact that you can't pull MBT's from everywhere especially when your techplant is taken helps a bunch. I've auraxed every certable lightning gun and done so by playing to the Lightning's strengths. It's far more suited for ambushes for example. It's fast so it won't take too long to drive large stretches to get behind enemies, it's the same vehicle cross-faction so aircraft are less likely to notice that you are hostile when you are moving behind enemy lines and the high DPS (more than Vanguards) allows you truly screw enemies. In a pinch it's usually fast and small enough to escape and when necessary you can try to act like a Harasser and just drive&shoot. If you want to do something to the Lightning you could make it more maneuverable and fast to put more emphasis on these strengths rather than remove it. You could also introduce more guntypes, such as an auto-canon type to deal with infantry and aircraft and/or allow Lightnings to equip aircraft noseguns to deal with enemy aircraft in a skillful manner and offer an anti-LA alternative to tank colums.
I just think it needs a re-work/tuning and probably a new cannon to play with; a gorgon/walker style cannon is what I had in mind (only not ******). They need to not be so damn prone to flippage either lol... An upgrade in traction, turning, hill climbing, possibly speed, would work wonders. The rival combat chassis maxed, is what the base lightning should be, with the chassis improving upon it from there. Imo, this alone would be enough. As for the cannons, I think they are mostly fine as-is. I've always thought they should have more velocity though, AP (275-300) and HEAT/HESH at ~225.
I'm pretty much a lightning main too since my kit isn't the best... Huge amounts of fun flanking and toying with bigger opponents! As for the Skyguard, it's brilliant. The tears those things can reap are amazing. The issue most have with them, and any tank, is they refuse to flank, to use distance, to scoot and shoot. They nearly always drive straight at the enemy and wonder why they die. Meanwhile a very small number of us on all factions are enjoying great success on the flanks.
CAI killed flanking for me. These days, if you don't have the right top gun, you're ****** against air, and if you bring a Ranger or Walker, you're ****** against armor. All top guns need to be much more punishing to aircraft, and have much better angles of movement. I'd happily accept that as a tanker and pilot if it meant nerfing the Ranger to the ground to match its required skill.
Might look weird from a guy called Vanguard but I hate tanks. I chose this name because I use to play chivalry medieval warfare a lot, but back to the issue : Any vehicle in this game is designed to be an infantry party ruiner anyway. MBT, lightnings, liberators camping every single window makes it so quick to lock people into their spawn and farm them without anyone having a chance to organize nanites. During low server activity time, don't expect to have a fun game. Every MAX and vehicle is pulled out way too often. There are vehicle zergs that make it useless to practice aiming since you just can AOE corridors people are forced to go through to exit their spawn. Just farm, where's the fun in skill and practice anyway? Harrassers are a way more interesting type of vehicle to the game, as infantry has a safe way of getting rid of it as long as they're accurate. Halberd rewards accuracy and the vehicle is manned by 2 players or can be manned with 1 but less effectively. But take a look at the lightning : More armor, more fire power, comfy behavior, fair speed, excellent fire power, cheap, 1 pilot... Are we playing a combined arms game or world of tanks? There should be more restrictions to armored vehicles. They're just used to prevent people from defending.
Lightning downsides - Low profile front makes for unpredictable terrain interaction. - The momentum and lack of traction are 3 times worse than a prowler while the top speed is only marginal higher. - The lightning is unable to escape most dangerous interactions when it is outgunned. - The lagged weapon and high damage amplifies the difficulty of the poor handling - Hard countered/outclassed by : harasser, mbt, liberator, esf (without skygard), Valkyrie, galaxy. (of equal skill) Lightning upsides - It can be pulled and used at its full potential by a single player. (usually limited to vehicle support roles) Possible changes. - Reduce the lag of the turret, - Add secondary gun like the esf (that is not limited pointing up) - Improve traction and top speed - decrease the suspension bound (or game equivalent) to reduce unwarranted flipping compare to the prowler suspension - Increase the clearance height of the front for less terrain interaction.
I was thinking about giving them the same weapon options as harassers, but with slight buffs to the weapon damage.
Lightings are a force multiplier to armor columns. 1 MBT + 1 Lighting > 1 MBT. Perfect in deterring both air and armor rushes, as well as using its speed to finish off damaged enemies. One change: remove the faction colored tracers and make them white like most other NS weaponry. Such that enemies who see the tracer does not know if the tank is friendly or not.
You can pull like a DOZEN lightnings in less than a minute from a completely filled up Player Silo. ...lets see ya match that level of sheer brute force pulling 2 MBT's?
Lightning are cheap, powerful, fast, you get damaged from something, just like an harasser you can easily run, hide repair or even hide as a driver if it's destroyed and redeploy and pull another. You can even pull out one that is specialised to counter what just destroyed you as they have a vast array of weapons, and can be pulled from almost any base. They have excellent range and don't need to flank that much in order to be effective. Its design is meant to be fast, nimble, yet most of the time when I meet them, they just sit in a safe spot with a couple of others and ruin the infantry game from a distance. There is something wrong with them. Unlike harassers that can be punished very hard for not moving around covers and peaking, they can perfectly play the waiting game and obliterate anything if used properly (Air, ground, infantry). They're so good there's almost no reason not to use them, to the point that there is not a single session without them (even during the night when serv pop is low). Compare the skill it takes to a light assault to destroy it and the skill it takes to a lightning to destroy a light assault which is supposed to be its counter. That's not ok. Everything in the game, every class, every vehicle is designed to excell at something and perform less good in other assignments than some others would. It's not true for the lightning. Add this to the zerg meta that we have had for a long time now. How do you get people from the FPS genre (which is a big pool) to stay in the game, when they always have the upperhand in almost every encounter, as long as the driver has the average IQ. You might say "yeah just take a light assault double C4 and voilà" but to get there you first have to avoid being spotted by almost anything else around it, or the attempt is just a suicide. They need improvements, and a big weakness. They need to be "brainable" and punished when being oblivious to surroundings. They were designed for fast, quick attacks. They need a cost increase OR a rework, deleting them will do no good to people who like them and the game already suffers from low population sometimes. It reminds me of crossout, the game died when meta shifted to everybody playing the same OP thing instead, of everyone learning to get as good as everybody else with their setup and building skills. Lightning should reward the player's skills more. Wraith flash had its needed tweak (and I say it as an infiltrator main, **** was OP) now it's powerful in the right hands and bad when you do mistakes, Daybreak did a good job with that. I wish they would tweak lightnings the same way. Force them to move around to be deadly.
